Brierly Hill 90210

I got married in October of 1999 so much of the year was a bit of a blur as music and the outside world were things that happened to other people. The official wedding ceremony was in New Jersey but we then traveled, with a large American contingent, to the UK to do it all over again in the Cotswolds. It was one, long party and celebration.

While much of what happened in 1998 is well known, Bill Clinton's relationship with Monica Lewinski being top of the list, there is much in this episode that I wasn't aware of at the time. Things were “getting serious” with my girlfriend, we got engaged and built a house together. Maybe that whole “getting a life” thing is what shifted my focus from keeping up with music that was new and exciting. There is plenty here that I discovered much later.

There are also news stories bubbling under the surface that only grab your attention with hindsight and the knowledge of what is to come. The Dayton Accord brought peace to Serbia two years earlier but things are far from settled in the nearby state of Kosovo. UN weapons inspectors have been given the runaround in Iraq for months and all sides (with some exceptions who will make their presence known) have come to the negotiating table over Northern Ireland. There's also a cameo appearance from a future US president.

So listen out for that as you sit back, relax and relive the stories and their musical accompaniment. Good riddance to all that's come before. Welcome to 1998.

The big news when I first moved to America two years earlier was the bombing in Oklahoma City. As 1997 begins, the court case against Timothy McVeigh is getting underway. Bill Clinton is starting his second term as president and, more personally, I started dating the girl who would become my wife. For some reason, she doesn't appreciate that I associate the occasion with the first episode of South Park; a group of us were watching and giggling childishly downstairs while she got ready for us all to go out.

I was soaking up American music and culture, attending the Lollapalooza and Warped tours and taking in other concerts and sporting events all over the country. Bands I saw included The Prodigy, Orbital, James, Eels and The Mighty Mighty Bosstones. As I become more “social integrated”, it certainly gives the impression that America was starting to feel more like home.

I had just started a 3-year secondment to my company's office in the United States. My first assignment was just north of Los Angeles in California. That's where I came up with the name of my podcast, Brierly Hill 90210. It was an amalgam of old and new, moving from the West Midlands of England to the home of American television and movies. Episodes of shows such as Melrose Place, Power Rangers and Beverley Hills 90210 were filmed in the office complex where I worked and one night, after one too many margaritas, I imagined how different these shows would be with a Black Country accent, and the Brierly Hill 90210 brand was born!

There were many such drunken nights, frequently with coworkers but more often on my own, as I traveled America through work assignments in Columbus Ohio, Phoenix Arizona, Chicago and Oklahoma City. I had rented an apartment in southern New Jersey, just outside Philadelphia, and the year started with me trying to get there from England but running into a spot of weather...

As you look back on life, there are key points that you didn't recognize at the time because, of course, you can't know their significance on what is to come. This episode and the year of 1995 is, for me, such a moment of great personal change. You'll hear this in the stories and an accompanying soundtrack from both sides of the Atlantic.

I started the year in Dudley in the British West Midlands but took a temporary work assignment in Chicago, in the American Mid West. My work permit only allowed a 3-month stay so I had to return for the summer back in the UK.

My company opened an office in New Jersey (in the American North East) so it was back state-side in the fall. But, having to go where the work was, I was hustled off to my next assignment on the west coast, just north of Los Angeles. I was flying back to New Jersey every other week, getting myself an appartment and a life sorted out. To give you an idea of scale, that internal American flight from west coast to east coast is further than from America to England! I still returned to the UK for Christmas and to hang out with friends and family.

I was 29 so still young enough to see all of the travel as exciting and an adventure. I was getting to see the real America, not just suggestions from a tourist guide-book. But, in hindsight, I developed an identity crisis. I was absorbing American culture, trying to grasp stories about celebrities I'd never heard of, often regarding sports I didn't understand, while getting to know people well enough to comprehend the impact of events such as the Oklahoma City bombing and the trial of OJ Simpson. I would watch a movie at the theater in America, travel back to the UK to find it hadn't been released and no-one had seen it yet. My visits back to the UK either coincided with key events or cultural change, or missed them completely so I witnessed them as an outsider. I was living between two places, with neither feeling like home.

Early in 1994 I took a new job as a computer programmer for a company based out of Dudley in the West Midlands. At the age of 28, one would expect some maturity but, with incredible naivety, I went up to Dudley the weekend before my start date without anywhere to live. I spent a night or two sleeping in pubs and then ran into a guy selling watches from inside his coat who knew another guy who could sub-let a room in his council flat. That at least gave me a base to impress my new employers from and surprisingly it worked. I did well and by the end of the year had upgraded to a flat of my own.

Dudley had some good, old-fashioned pubs, great takeaways and a decent second-hand record shop where I spent most lunch-times. There was also JB's, a music venue where I got to see the likes of Chumbawumba, Shed Seven, Nilon Bombers, Supergrass, Dr and the Medics and Bad Manners. I would take the train back to Cheltenham most weekends to watch my beloved Cheltenham Town and would buy records in the center of Birmingham on the way.

As I moved away, national and international news cameras moved in and focused on a house in Cromwell Street in Gloucester. Listen out for that as you sit back and enjoy the sounds of 1994.

I moved house at the beginning of 1993. I was now living in the center of Cheltenham in a one-bedroom flat and, having only previously house-shared, it was the first time living on my own. It was awesome! The Swan was just up the road and was my new local and my favorite record store, Badlands, which had moved from the indoor market to a larger, more permanent home, was also in easy walking distance. That may explain why there is so much good music crammed into this episode. But there are also a lot of “ear worms” from The Swan's video juke-box. It had a limited selection and the same few songs were on a constant cycle.

Though I didn't know it at the time, this would be my last year living in Cheltenham. As I sat at the bar in The Swan, it would have blown my little mind to think I'd be moving to the West Midlands the following year and traveling to Europe and America soon after.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. I'm back in The Swan in Cheltenham, so sit back with me and enjoy the arresting sounds of 1993.

I've talked before about how putting this series together has presented some unexpected learning opportunities. Case in point, I'm not sure I had realized that the war in Yugoslavia was really a series of separate wars and conflicts. By the time 1992 came around, the Slovenian War of Independence was already over and battles for an independent Croatia were already underway. The Bosnian War would start in April while conflict centered on Kosovo and Macedonia are still a few years away.

Away from the Yugoslavia war zone, in the UK, John Major leads the Conservative Party as Prime Minister and a general election looks imminent, with Labour leading in the opinion polls. In America, under a different system of course, the exact date of the next election is already known with George Bush in the final year of his first term. Will he continue or do the Democrats have somebody new waiting in the wings?

These and other stories cascade down the mountain of life as we navigate the rapids in our trusty musical canoe.

We've covered nearly 40 years so far in this series and I have to say 1991 is probably the most monumental in terms of the sheer scale of world events. 1990 saw several stories left with cliff-hanger endings. Iraq has invaded Kuwait with the United Nations establishing international embargoes and resolutions that clear the way for a military intervention. Nelson Mandela has been freed in South Africa but the system of apartheid is still in place. While the Berlin Wall fell and Germany re-united, many other nations from the old Eastern Bloc continue the struggle of replacing fascist leadership with new, democratically elected governments.

While American news outlets will focus on events in Kuwait and the Soviet Union, an equally important story bubbles under the surface in Yugoslavia, as Serbia and Croatia have their own views on independence.

In the UK, the political response to all of these important international events will be provided by a new leader, John Major having replaced Margaret Thatcher as prime minister.

Strangely there was less going on musically in 1991. There is a distinct lack of good, original music. Obviously there's some (there always is) and it would be easy to just dismiss this as a gap in my own personal record collection. But even John Peel, who collected listeners votes for their favorite songs of the year, had to abandon his Festive 50 due to insufficient contributions from the public.

There's a lot going on in this episode so you'll have to pay attention. Strap in. You're in for a bumpy ride.

It's been over a decade since punk rock was introduced with a bang by Bill Grundy. Music has evolved from The Ramones and The Sex Pistols to James and The Happy Mondays, from Kraftwerk to 808 State. Bands have come and gone; The Clash, The Farmers Boys, The Smiths. While others remain; Cabaret Voltaire, The Cure, New Order.

And so 1990 sees the start of a new decade. I'm still living in Cheltenham, at the same job I had upon leaving school 7 years earlier. I'm probably partying too hard, but was in my early 20s so it would have been rude not to.

The Iron Curtain is, if not completely dragged wide open, certainly pulled aside half-way with disobedient children mischievously peaking through. At home, like the Iron Curtain, the Iron Lady sees challenges that appear to signal the beginning of the end. A build-up of violence at football matches saw an increased caging-in of fans which resulted in the tragedy at Hillsborough. Apartheid remains but, in South Africa, just as elsewhere in the world, you can feel change coming.

So, at the start of a new chapter, here's where the story begins.